Science

In late August, NASA discovered the 5,502th exoplanet. Yesterday, scientists unveiled the discovery of a giant exoplanet located 120 light years away. Named K2-18b, this planet is no less than nine times the size of ours and appears to possess a water ocean alongside hints of potential life.

If you are thinking of becoming one of the first humans to colonize Mars, you might need to consider your personality type. Research examining the optimal personality types to be able to help a Mars colony become stable and sustainable found that those with neurotic personality traits are a risk to themselves and others.

Superconductors have near-perfect electric conductivity and can significantly boost transistor efficiency. Besides being of utmost important for the IT&C industry, superconductors can also revolutionize other technologies, including maglev railways, magnetic plasma fusion reactors, electric car engines and medical MRI devices.

Intel's first quantum processor only has 12 qubits, almost a thousand times less than IBM's upcoming Flamingo chip. However, Team Blue is using a different design based on silicon spin qubits that are a million times smaller, allowing them to scale easier to coherent clusters of thousands and even millions.

CheckUp Bing isn't the only place where great-looking images get showcased every day. AstroBin is even better, in a sense that it is entirely dedicated to astrophotography.

A group of scientists from Sweden managed to build T-shaped transistors out of balsa wood treated with a water-soluble polymer. Since this design only operates in the kilohertz range and can be shrunk to a few millimeters, it is not intended as a replacement for silicon-based semiconductors in the Angstrom era.

Vast, a startup aerospace company based in California, is currently building the world's first private space station. The company hopes to launch the station into orbit within the next two to three years with the help of SpaceX.

Physical keyboards could soon return to be a part of OLED displays - sort of. Designers from Carnegie Mellon University claim to have proven that the panels are compatible with fluid-filled bumps that can act as a keyboard. They are deployed via an innovative pumping mechanism that can cause them to inflate at need.

Volkswagen has unveiled the latest drive compatible with its MEB electric vehicle platform. It is rated to enable some next-gen ID family members to launch as rear-wheel drive e-cars with the potential for increased range and efficiency. The APP550 is also touted to deliver "significantly more" power and torque to boot.

Telecommunications networks that work in the stratosphere represent the next big thing for companies like SoftBank. However, the airborne platforms on which this "Information Revolution" are to be based depend on batteries that can withstand the extremes of temperature and pressure at those altitudes to work. Enpower Greentech Inc (EGI) claims to have developed a power-pack with the durability, stability and energy density needed to live up to that demanding use-case.

The goal is to create faster and more secure networks spanning wider areas with the aid of lab-grown diamonds. Amazon will work with De Beer's Element Six division to produce diamonds through a technique called chemical vapor deposition, which emulates the natural impurities forming around diamonds. These impurities can work as repeaters in a quantum network.

Xiaomi has presented its solid-state battery technology that it claims improves energy density by a third relative to conventional lithium-ion batteries. According to the company, a prototype Xiaomi 13 has a 6,000 mAh capacity compared to the 4,500 mAh that ships in retail units.

Infinix is now said to have a new smartphone charging system that could set a new record for the industry in the works. This alleged upgrade on 180W ThunderCharge technology is tipped to blow even the new Realme GT3 out of the water on its March 2023 launch. This event may introduce a new power brick with key adaptations to support its estimated 260W top speed.

The limited miniaturization of digital processors could soon constrain the available AI processing power. Scientists are now exploring alternative ways to boost AI processing speeds by combining human brain cells with digital computations.

According to a new report, Apple has sunk nearly 12 years of development into creating a sensor that can monitor blood sugar levels via a non-invasive sensor. The technology is now said to have reached a significant milestone, with hundreds of engineers working to improve the sensor under Apple's Exploratory Design Group.

The green EV credentials are under threat from a new MIT study that calculates future greenhouse gas emissions from vehicles with computers dedicated to autonomous driving tasks. Self-driving kits like Tesla's upcoming Hardware 4 upgrade could produce climate change emissions equal to or surpassing those of all current data centers combined if their power draw is not kept in check.

Graphite is often hailed as the ideal anode and, as such, may become one of the hottest manufactured commodities in the battery industry going forward. However, a Finnish company asserts that its new alternative compound is comparable, if not superior, and can be made using less energy. Furthermore, it can apparently be made using an abundant by-product of the forestry industry.

After lowering the Starlink satellite Internet prices in a lot of regions, yet introducing download restrictions, SpaceX is now running a deal on the RV bundle. US Starlink for RV subscribers will get a month free, while Canadians are offered an equipment discount.

Qualcomm's new Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 flagship processor is projected to be on the market in the form of new smartphones by 2023. However, those who would like it in something more like a reference platform for purely AI applications are in luck. The OEM will also offer the SoC as part of a new Innovators Development Kit to academic and research entities.

IBM is checking the box for the 2022 QPU scaling roadmap with the 433-qubit "Osprey" model. Next year, the company is set to triple the qubit count with a "Condor" model. The processing power of such QPUs is already being put to good use by companies like Bosch, which seeks to produce sustainable alternatives for low-supply metals and rare-earth elements needed for EV motors.

The entire Internet's bandwidth almost twice over was squeezed through a single fiber optics cable with the aid of a revolutionary photonic chip that splits a laser beam into different colors.

5G is touted as capable of delivering multi-gigabit per second (Gb/s) downloads; however, some proponents of its next generation assert that it will scale mobile data speeds up to terabit (Tb) speeds. LG purports to have gotten even closer to this kind of future with the latest demo of what is known as "6G THz (or terahertz) data" at Berlin's Fraunhofer Heinrich Hertz Institute (HHI). Furthermore, the partners assert that it has worked over the longest distance outdoors recorded to date.

The upcoming High-Performance Spaceflight Computing processors that will power NASA's future space missions are designed around SiFive's 8-core Intelligences X280 SoCs plus 4 more general purpose cores. These processors are said to be 100x faster than the ones powering current spacecraft.

LG has previewed its PuriCare Objet Collection Aero Furniture series, three tables with built-in air purifiers. Compatible with the LG ThinQ ecosystem, the three devices mirror the IKEA Starkvind, which is already orderable. LG will exhibit the PuriCare Objet Collection Aero Furniture series at next month's IFA 2022 conference.

The new device resembles a bandage that is primarily made of gallium nitride and gold plus various sensing membranes. Thanks to the piezoelectric properties of the gallium nitride layer, the e-skin can wirelessly transmit signals related to pulse, sweat and other human biomarkers.

The search for a cure of male or female alopecia in the form of significant hair loss has seen two major development in the span of just a few weeks. Researchers from the University of California, Irvine, have discovered the molecule that signals hair growth, SCUBE3.

The FDA has cleared Rune Labs to collect Parkinson's symptom information from patients via its StrivePD Apple watch app. The software can detect tremors and other symptoms of the disease and can be used to log the benefits felt by medication. Rune Labs will use the data collected by the app in clinical trials for new Parkinson's therapeutics.

The results of a new study conducted in 2022 can be used to conclude that smartphone use-frequency among adults based in the United States has increased by about 366% compared to that measured three years ago. The researchers report that 1 in 5 of their subjects wouldn't go without their phone for more than a few hours, while only 1 in 4 could withstand the temptation to bring their device into the bathroom with them.

Samsung and Naver have partnered to present South Korea's first ever private 5G network. It exists to support a cloud that co-ordinates a new fleet of robots at the latter's new HQ. They are intended to move around the place by themselves, serving the company's employees with their meals, mail and coffee throughout the building.

We've all heard of deepfakes, search algorithms, and the AI-powered computational photography systems that enhance our cat photos, but those applications are just the tip of the iceberg. AI is becoming more and more present in industry nowadays, so let's have a look at some interesting applications of AI that we might not have seen coming.

AstroForge, a California-based asteroid-mining startup, has secured seats aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket for the company's maiden space mission. The mission is meant to be a demonstration and is scheduled for next year.

Researchers in Portugal, the US, and the UK recently published a paper in which they attempted to leverage quantum computing algorithms to optimize ray-traced rendering workloads. The researchers' approach helped cut intersections per ray in a scene by a factor of three. The use of older NISQ quantum computing technology meant rendering took several hours, however.

The UC San Diego Center for Wearable Sensors has created what they call a "multi-tasking wearable" for continuously monitoring not only blood sugar levels, but also the impact of drinking alcohol and participating in strenuous exercise on them. This Holy Grail of diabetes vitals' monitoring is made possible by a painless skin patch with microneedles that can be worn at all times.

Huawei has announced that it will sell the Watch D in Europe. To be released for €449, the Watch D can monitor blood pressure levels, take ECGs and provides up to 7 days of battery life.

A team of researchers at MIT has developed a loudspeaker as thin as paper. The ultra-thin film can turn any surface into a loudspeaker, requiring little power to produce a high-quality sound. The researchers suggest many applications for the material, including wallpaper and smart devices with limited battery life.

InspectIR's COVID-19 Breathalyzer device takes only three minutes to analyze and detect an active infection with 99% accuracy for the negative or 91% for the positive test results. The COVID-19 breath test sample itself is collected in about ten seconds, but the device is not intended for at-home usage.

Lambda, a company known for building deep learning-focused PCs, and Razer have teamed up to release a new version of the Tensorbook, a slim laptop with machine learning chops. The notebook is packed to the gills with hardware designed for AI development, comes preinstalled with lots of Lambda's software, and has some solid gaming capabilities.

iRobot has released the Create 3, an educational robotics kit based on the Roomba i3 series robot vacuum. The product has been designed to provide advanced makers with a lower cost, out-of-the-box kit to further their skills. The robot has intelligent features such as an optical floor tracking sensor.

Dyson has gained plenty of attention with the Dyson Zone, a pair of headphones that have a built-in air purifier. While novel, it appears that the technology behind the wearable is outdated and does not reflect current public health practices post-pandemic.

University of British Columbia researchers have managed to bioprint working tubular structures from human testicular stem cells in order to fight a common causes male infertility. The 3D-printed testicular tubes will now be "coached" into sperm production the way they behave in healthy human testicles and potentially used for developing novel in-vitro fertilization treatments.

The robotics division of the well-known conglomerate Kawasaki has raised some eyebrows with its new ridable electric goat robot, which may be a tad too slow for fans of the sporty motorcycles for which the Japanese company is usually known.

SpaceX's satellite internet service Starlink has notched another achievement on its average download speed belt, piercing the 100Mbps threshold required for funding by various rural broadband initiatives in the U.S. In some countries like Australia, Canada, UK, or Germany, Starlink provides internet that is faster than their fixed broadband services on average.

A new material for the blue diodes in an OLED panel triples the current luminous efficiency preventing the dreaded burn-in problem and increasing the lifespan of the screen significantly. A dual-stack OLED display method adds 30% lower power consumption to the increased lifespan, too.

From foldable phones to floppy CPUs, the future of tech is bright and ever-changing. Some of the technologies of the future are obviously still in their infancy but let's have a look at some of the most exciting upcoming developments anyway.

Rockley Photonics has partnered with Medtronic, a medical device company. Rockley and Medtronic will collaborate in bringing the Bioptx biomarker sensing platform to market, which takes the form of a wrist-based device. The Bioptx biomarker sensing platform can measure core body temperature, hydration levels and blood pressure non-invasively, among other capabilities.

The next gen AI applications require computing power that cannot be provided by traditional hardware. In order to solve this problem, Luminous Computing is building a supercomputer based on silicon photonics and optical pathways that can increase bandwidth and power efficiency orders of magnitude beyond what is offered by current solutions.

Redmi launched a special Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1-themed edition of its K50 Gaming phone alongside its vanilla counterpart in China recently. The Xiaomi subsidiary has released the phone with a 120W power brick in the box, rated to run on advanced gallium nitride (GaN) technology provided by the OEM's industry partner Navitas.

A research team from the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology in Saudi Arabia has designed a solar panel that simultaneously generates electricity and collects water to grow crops.

Research being conducted by Apple and Harvard University is investigating menstrual health. The latest report from the study contains insights gathered from participants around polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS).

A patent has been submitted to the USPTO by Toyota for an innovative robotic muscle technology. These artificial muscles would allow robots to mimic human movements and carry out dangerous tasks.